• (cs)

    Just for reference:

    People from Scotland, Connecticut do not talk like that, either.

  • drake (unregistered) in reply to F
    F:
    Eire's stand by Scots:

    And by the way,

    Sockatume:
    Perhaps he picked up a scottish egg
    Scotch is a drink. Scottish is something of Scotland. /pedant

    You sound like one of the many idiots at the New York Times, who accused the Economist of making a mistake when it referred to Cornish pasties.

    I love how you say "the idiot" like there's only one... FTFY

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Eire's stand by Scots

    [quote user="Eire's stand by Scots"][quote user="skotl"] [quote user="Sockatume"]Perhaps he picked up a scottish egg[/quote] Scotch is a drink. Scottish is something of Scotland. /pedant[/quote]

    I'd love to be in the bar when you order a "Scottish egg".

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to drake
    drake:
    F:

    You sound like one of the many idiots at the New York Times, who accused the Economist of making a mistake when it referred to Cornish pasties.

    I love how you say "the idiot" like there's only one... FTFY

    How many idiots at the New York Times accused the Economist of making this mistake? Was this some sort of epidemic of complaint that I missed?

  • Welch (unregistered) in reply to Eire's stand by Scots
    Eire's stand by Scots:
    And by the way,
    Sockatume:
    Perhaps he picked up a scottish egg
    Scotch is a drink. Scottish is something of Scotland. /pedant

    "Scotch" is short for "Scotch whisky" in which "Scotch" has the same meaning as "Scottish.'

  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to skotl
    skotl:
    So a nothing story about a serial cable being loose turned into a racist dig at Scotland.

    We don't talk like that. Haggis is a single ingredient in a hearty Scottish breakfast. Lochs are out in the middle of nowhere. We are not all football (soccer) fans, and we are certainly not all football hooligans.

    Whoever wrote this still thinks Scotland (and presumably Ireland and Wales) are still living in the Braveheart era (Mel Gibson is Australian, by the way, just in case you also think he's representative of the Scots).

    Ignorant, pointless, insulting trash. There's enough genuinely good-humor on this site without having to produce shit like this.

    For being a scot, you sure unexpectedly wear your crap on your sleeves. Your ancestors would tromp over you.

    Go ahead and call me a redneck. I certainly won't cry foul "racism". You can say we all stick to our Bibles and guns, and that we don't have a better pass-time than kicking mud. Where's my straw hat and stick? I'm going to get some kids to whitewash my fence, "HOOWEE". Yeah. I get that. All the time. All these bleeding hearts running around throwing slurs at me and my culture, but heaven forbid someone puts on a skirt and blue face-paint, because "That's racist."

    Seriously, you get a few stereotypes and you think you're experiencing racism. Haven't had a brick thrown through your window. Haven't had your cousin hung in your front yard.

    Get off.

    I'm tired of these entitled crybabies.

  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to emaNrouY-Here
    emaNrouY-Here:
    Does no one recognize the obvious Star Trek (TOS) references in this thing?

    Too busy being whiny offended brats.

  • (cs) in reply to KJ
    KJ:
    Eire's stand by Scots:
    Scotch is a drink. Scottish is something of Scotland. /pedant
    In this case, a Scotch egg is actually a thing. It's a de-shelled boiled egg, wrapped in sausage meat and breadcrumbs, and deep fried. It was invented in England.

    It is certainly NOT deep-fried, at least not in Britain. In America, probably, because nobody in America can cook worth shit.

  • Valued Service (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Andrew:
    I see a lot of comments that the article is racist. To those guys: I don't think you know what racism really is.

    Racism is prejudice against someone because of their race. I know this because I live in a place where we deal with racism and hate amongst different peoples on a daily basis.

    An oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person is stereotype. It's easily recognizable (often in poor taste) and people should discard it just as easily. (Using stereotype to incite hate is a different matter entirely.)

    Do you really believe that the author is hateful against a people? Or just using a common stereotype?

    People have watered down racism because it's a political trump card. All you have to do is tie what your opponent is doing to racism, and all your failures are forgotten.

    In doing so, all kinds of thought have been tied to racism.

    A personal preference against something is now considered an -ism.

    Don't like colorful clothing? You hate Indians.

    Want to deport criminals when you find out they're here illegally? You hate Mexicans.

    Fun fact. Only 50% of "African-Americans" in America actually have their first generation immigrants from Africa. So is that title racist? Assuming all people of that race come from Africa?

  • Spacehost (unregistered)

    This is terrible. If you're going to descend into cultural stereotypes at least get them right. It's clearly written by someone who has never heard a Scottish person before, never mind met one, or for that matter an Aberdonian, who sound distinct to their neighbours in the Highlands. And who has a "red eye" flight from France to Aberdeen? It's a prime oil contractor route, if he needed to get from France to Aberdeen he'd manage it in two hours.

    For the record, a Scottish breakfast usually resembles a full English breakfast, with the addition or substitution of the following to the base ingredients:

    Fried tattie scone. Fried haggis. Fried fruit pudding. Fried Scotch pancakes. Fried square sausage.

    And to end the "Scotch" thing one last time, whisky can be Scotch, beef can be Scotch, eggs can be Scotch, and shortbread can be Scotch, but a person is always Scottish.

    And for the love of God Sockatume, stop trying to eat Scotch eggs for breakfast. I'm not explaining to the family how your heart got blocked by a combination of orange breadcrumbs and sausage meat.

  • (cs) in reply to Chuck Ritter
    Chuck Ritter:
    This reminds me of a service call I made to a water filtration plant. The engineers were complaining that the numeric keypad was not working to enter numbers on the HMI (Human Machine Interface -- basically a computer that provides an interface to the PLCs that run the actual machinery).

    I walked in, tapped the NumLock key, said, "Try it now," and went home. Unfortunately for me, it was only a 90-minute (each way) roadtrip, no hotel, no first-class flight. As such, it only ran up to a few hundred dollars.

    "What did he do that was worth (n) hundred dollars?"

    "Du-uh. He pressed that key, silly." (Tap)

    "Aw no! The numeric keypad don't work again! Bring him back!"

  • (cs)

    This article was so bad that I expect it to become a skit on the Cleveland Show.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Maciej
    Maciej:
    Martay:
    Easily the most racist article on WTF!

    Eh, I'm guessing the genuinely good Indian programmers will disagree with you.

    All three of them.

    I've worked extensively with programmers from India, China, Ukraine, and many other countries. As a rule, they're not the greatest, but I've actually worked with some highly talented programmers over the years. The problem with them is communication, usually. Making my point in English, and having them translate it into code are two different things, especially as I'm a novice programmer and only speak the one language. Sometimes they hit it right on the money first try. Other times, I wonder WTF they heard, because it certainly isn't what I said.

  • (cs) in reply to Matt Westwood
    Matt Westwood:
    It is certainly NOT deep-fried, at least not in Britain. In America, probably, because nobody in America can cook worth shit.

    "When you're using ketchup, you're saying this food is so good I want it to taste like something else. Salsa is the Mexican ketchup. Marinara is the Italian ketchup. And English food is terrible. Vinegar is the English ketchup."

  • Ridley (unregistered)

    It's clear enaw 'at willie interrupted a spy in th' midst ay installin' a keystroke logger. Wa else wud 'at hin' be jist hangin' thaur loch 'at?

  • Jeff Dege (unregistered)

    I once got called out on a Saturday because the number-pad enter key on a Wyse-60 terminal keyboard got stuck, and the user was tired of having to reach all the way across the keyboard to hit the letter-pad enter key.

    Just to keep things in perspective, this was on the payout terminal of a bingo-hall system. The user had to enter one ten-digit number at the end of every game. So this excessive reaching across the keyboard is something they were being forced to do perhaps four times an hour.

    I swapped the keyboard in question with one from an unused management terminal, and billed them the four hours minimum. (And later swapped out the management keyboard with one from stock, during the next routine visit.)

  • (cs)

    Let's also remember that Scottish soccer fans frequently win Sportsmanship and Fair Play awards at European tournaments, and are widely regarded as amongst the best-behaved anywhere. Sure there are a very few hooligans, as with any sport's fans; but the bad old days of Celtic and Rangers fans regularly brawling at every Old Firm game are thankfully a thing of the past. Certainly when travelling to support the Scotland soccer team as 'The Tartan Army,' the only trouble Scottish football fans encounter is trouble caused by other countries' fans.

    And yes, the Scots count as a race and indeed as a separate country in events such as the Commonwealth Games, the (soccer) World Cup and European Championships, in curling, etc., etc. So do the Welsh and the English and the Irish.

    Oh, and if you want a better British stereotype than "… days when Robert felt like a British Monarch …" then how about "… days when Robert felt like Lord Sugar* …" (* the guy who plays the Donald Trump part in the UK's version of The Apprentice TV show)

  • (cs) in reply to Cad Delworth

    I choose to believe that Donald Trump plays Alan Sugar's role in the US Apprentice, because if there's one person Scottish people hate more than the writer of this WTF ("the American Hitler", I believe he's now referred to as), it's Donald "Fuck Off" Trump.

  • Ben R. (unregistered) in reply to eViLegion
    eViLegion:
    Haggis is both hearty and traditional. It isn't served with Eggs, it's served with "Neeps and Tatties" (turnips and potatoes) and it is totally delicious.

    I'm not Scottish, I'm a soft southern English pansy, but I wont simply stand by and watch my neighbours' awesome cooking slandered in such a callous fashion.

    Also... I object to the way in which the article finished. Nowhere are Wales or Northern Ireland mentioned. They're not happy. Go on... make them happy.

    Though my friend who had immigrated from Scotland not too long ago informs me that haggis is absolutely disgusting. "Awesome" might be a bit too generous of a word. :)

  • (cs)

    something something Robert then returned to Downton Abbey something something

  • Gordonjcp (unregistered) in reply to Andrew
    Do you really believe that the author is hateful against a people? Or just using a common stereotype?

    So if the customer in this story was talking like Uncle Remus, and the story was peppered with colourful references to watermelons, fried chicken and "wheah all the white wimmin at?", that would be perfectly okay, would it?

  • (cs) in reply to Gordonjcp

    I'd say there's nothing wrong with a bit of stereotype, as in a few hundred words it's hard to form character otherwise. But going Full Shortbread Tin is just stupid. You never go Full Shortbread Tin.

  • (cs) in reply to eViLegion
    eViLegion:
    Haggis is both hearty and traditional.

    That it is. And if I recall correctly, not just hearty but livery and lungy as well.

  • (cs)

    LOL at the Doohan joke, but no Canadian except a UK ex-pat would know what a "Saloon car" is (Hints: No, you don't carry a 6-shooter into it, nor does it serve drinks).

  • Jazz (unregistered) in reply to Willie
    Willie:
    The most shocking part of the story is that you were happy to overcharge a client for a pointless site visit caused by your inability to diagnose the problem over the telephone. Your software is not able to give an understandable message when a key piece of hardware is disconnected? I wonder how good your crypto is when this is how you write software.

    Right, because the person who spec'd the software, the person who wrote the software, and the person who is troubleshooting the software clearly must all be the same person... eyeroll

  • BOB (unregistered) in reply to Pedant
    Pedant:
    And for all the Americans out there... swedes = rutabagas

    Gee, that helps.

  • (cs) in reply to shepd
    shepd:
    LOL at the Doohan joke, but no Canadian except a UK ex-pat would know what a "Saloon car" is (Hints: No, you don't carry a 6-shooter into it, nor does it serve drinks).

    Us car-loving Yanks know what a coupe, a saloon, and a cabriolet are. Event an Ute.

  • John (unregistered) in reply to Eire's stand by Scots

    Wait! you're saying the tape is a drink? Then why does it have a tartan all over the packaging. Now I'm confused.

  • (cs)

    Willie should bill the moron who invented the dongle.

  • (cs) in reply to John

    How has no one realized that this story was written by Little Naitch? I think that gives him a free pass. :P

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Robinson_(referee)

  • (cs) in reply to Spacehost
    Spacehost:
    I choose to believe that Donald Trump plays Alan Sugar's role in the US Apprentice
    Unfortunately, the US version came first, so it does have to be that way round.

    And what you say about Mr. Trump is indeed true: plus, his combover is rubbish compared to Gregor Fisher's iconic comic character The Baldy Man.

  • foo (unregistered) in reply to Cad Delworth
    Cad Delworth:
    but the bad old days of [...] Old Firm game are thankfully a thing of the past.
    ... since last year.
  • charles (unregistered)

    I agree that this is the most racist and disrespectful article I've ever seen on this site. I fully expect TDWTF writers to embellish a story, but couldn't that have been done in ways that were not racist?

    CAPTCHA: delenit - yes, delete it.

  • (cs) in reply to faoileag
    faoileag:
    Anon:
    faoileag:
    Robert settled Willie down and asked the obligatory troubleshooting questions (Is it plugged in? Is it switched on? Was the crypto hardware unit connected properly? Has a giant sea monster eaten your server?) but to no avail.
    If you work for a company that secures its hardware with dongles, asking about the dongle should definitely be the next question after "Is it switched on?"...
    So you're complaining that Robert didn't do exactly what he did?
    Not having any crypto hardware of my own, I assume "Is the crypto hardware unit connected properly?" refers to a connection to either another machine or a network.

    I would not understand it as "Is the crypto hardware unit connected properly to your dongle?" as a dongle is a rather small bit of hardware.

    For that I would expect a question like "Is the dongle that came with your server connected properly to your serial port?"

    Hey! "NSFW" please!
  • Dominic (unregistered) in reply to Martay
    Martay:
    Easily the most racist article on WTF! It was clearly based on Willie from the Simpsons...
    Why don't you go toss a caber about it.
  • Ol' Bob (unregistered) in reply to KJ
    KJ:
    No, wait, the real WTF is: No mention of kilts anywhere in the WTF.

    Considering that the poster does use the term "dongle" I was assuming that dearth of kilt mentionry was simply a matter of good taste. Eh, laddie?

  • Ol' Bob (unregistered) in reply to Martay
    Martay:
    Easily the most racist article on WTF! It was clearly based on Willie from the Simpsons...
    Clearly false. It was based on "Slick Willie", a former president of the United States.
  • Bill C. (unregistered) in reply to Jeebus
    Jeebus:
    Robert boarded his Saturday red-eye flight. Willie laid out big bucks for him to fly first class. As he enjoyed his warm nuts and hot towel, Robert began to wonder what might be wrong with Willie’s crypto setup.
    I like my nuts warm before a good trouble shooting session as well.
    Say what? Willie's the one who got his nuts warm before shooting led to trouble. Robert wasn't there, and his rules of order didn't begin to cover the kind of congress we had.
  • Ol' Bob (unregistered) in reply to pure
    pure:
    “That willn’t do, laddy! I need this workin before I go to the Aberdeen football match on Sunday!”

    TRWTF. Nobody goes to those games.

    Besides, in proper Scots this would be rendered, "Tha' t'will nae do, laddie! Ah need this workrrrrin' aforrre I gae ta' the Aberdeen fooootball mahtch on Soondae!", and likely there'd be a chorus of "Scots Wha' Hae" tossed (tos't) in there as well.

  • Ol' Bob (unregistered) in reply to Pedant
    Pedant:
    "Neeps and Tatties" (turnips and potatoes)

    I'm not usually a pedant but you started it...

    Neeps and tatties is not turnips and potatoes, it's Swede and potatoes.

    The scottish call them turnips (tur-neeps geddit) but we call them swedes, turnips are different. I have no idea what they name they use for actual turnips!

    And for all the Americans out there... swedes = rutabagas

    Over here in the by-God You-Ess-Of-A we call both turnips AND rutabagas "goat feed" - 'ceptin' the goats don't want no part of 'em neither!

  • Jelly Donuts (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Pedant:
    "Neeps and Tatties" (turnips and potatoes)
    And for all the Americans out there... swedes = rutabagas
    Speaking of racist...

    (though as a Finn, I have no problem at all with slurs at the expense of the Swedes)

    No one called JFK racist when he proclaimed himself one of us.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Jim
    Jim:
    Eire's stand by Scots:
    And by the way,
    Sockatume:
    Perhaps he picked up a scottish egg
    Scotch is a drink. Scottish is something of Scotland. /pedant
    Says who? Everywhere I've eaten them in England and Scotland they've been sold as scotch eggs. If you go into a shop and ask for a "scottish egg" you're likely to get a funny look.

    And exactly why do you think it's called "scotch" whisky? "Scotch" as a general term may have fallen out of favour but it is old-fashioned rather than offensive. "Jock", on the other hand....

    'Cause it's cheap?

    (For the irony impaired: That was a cheap shot.)

  • (cs)

    I always heard that Scottish people were incredibly cheap. So much for reliable stereotypes.

  • (cs)

    For all of the "racist" comments on here, I am not sure why everyone jumps to racisim instead of parody or other form of humor.

    I thought it obvious from "Achh, I’ve givin er all I can give!" that this was a prody of SCOTTY from Star Trek... learn your geek references... sheesh...

    And a side rant: when did typing so that a heavy accent comes across to be able to protray a character equate to racism? There are cultural slurs, and then you have dialect references. This is a dialect reference and is being attacked by people who obviously spend too much time behind the keyboard and not interacting with people face to face.

  • (cs) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    Matt Westwood:
    It is certainly NOT deep-fried, at least not in Britain. In America, probably, because nobody in America can cook worth shit.

    "When you're using ketchup, you're saying this food is so good I want it to taste like something else. Salsa is the Mexican ketchup. Marinara is the Italian ketchup. And English food is terrible. Vinegar is the English ketchup."

    The only thing we eat with vinegar on is chips. Those are like your "french fries" except they're made from bigger pieces of potato.

  • anon (unregistered)

    Is it omitted on purpose that Willie's OS was Apple's? :D

  • (cs) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Severity One:
    You can have a decent meal in Britain; just make sure that the owners originate from outside Britain.
    You have clearly never had Chinese food in Britain.
    But are we talking 'restaurant' or 'take-away' here? That makes a bit of a difference.

    For example, in Eindhoven (the Netherlands) there's a Chinese restaurant where about 80% of the patrons are Chinese. They serve quite decent food, although as a Westerner you get the 'westernised' version.

  • (cs) in reply to The Bytemaster
    The Bytemaster:
    For all of the "racist" comments on here, I am not sure why everyone jumps to racisim instead of parody or other form of humor.

    I thought it obvious from "Achh, I’ve givin er all I can give!" that this was a prody of SCOTTY from Star Trek... learn your geek references... sheesh...

    And a side rant: when did typing so that a heavy accent comes across to be able to protray a character equate to racism? There are cultural slurs, and then you have dialect references. This is a dialect reference and is being attacked by people who obviously spend too much time behind the keyboard and not interacting with people face to face.

    +1

  • Billiam (unregistered) in reply to Martay

    Easily the most racist article on WTF! It was clearly based on Willie from the Simpsons...

    How can it be racist? Scottish people are white!

    • Americans
  • Krzysiek (unregistered)

    I have no idea why Robert would tighten the thumb-screw instead of using a Scotch tape ;-)

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